The UW-River Falls equine judging team may have been relatively unknown a
few years ago, but with hard work and perseverance, its members have become
top competitors in less than a year.

UW-RF finished fifth at the most prestigious judging competition in the country,
the Quarter Horse World Championship in Oklahoma City.

The team also finished second at the National Reining Horse Futurity in Oklahoma
City, with three students placing in the top 10: Senior Rhea Bretl, an animal
science major from Appleton; graduate Jess Montour, an animal science major
from Shawano; and senior Trisha Keller, an animal science major from Hartland.
Other team members include junior Ted Chapman, a business administration major
from Stillwater, Minn., and senior Bree Ann Burgy, an animal science major from
Eagle River.

UW-RF equine instruction Assistant Professor Kristina Hiney said she is proud
to have taken an unknown team in the world of horse judging and made it competitive
with the top teams in the country.

"Most of these teams have very established programs where they recruit students
out of junior colleges or from 4-H teams to come to that university for the
purpose of being on the judging team. We practiced for three months and finished
in the top with the students who have been judging for years. To me, that is
a huge accomplishment," Hiney said.

The team is actually part of an animal science class titled Advance Equine
Evaluation. This was the first year UW-RF students received credit for their
judging efforts.

Students travel to competitions across the country to test their ability to
evaluate horses. This year, the team took part in three contests: two in Oklahoma
and one in Columbus, Ohio.

Hiney said students come from all over the United States to the competitions.
UW-RF competed with schools from Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan, Oregon, Wyoming
and Florida.

At a competition, students observe 12 classes of four horses each. They have
to rank the horses according to their performances, or what the horses did,
and conformation, or how the horses look. They then turn in cards with their
placings after each class. How the students rank the horses is compared with
the ranking of a panel of expert judges. The students are expected to place
the horses similarly to the judges.

After the placing part of the competition, students prepare a set of oral reasons
for selected classes. The students individually present their reasoning of why
they placed each horse the way they did in a two-minute presentation. The students
are judged on their use of correct terminology and overall oral performance,
including voice tone and inflection. The oral reasons judge then gives the students
a score for the set of reasons they just performed.

Although UW-RF had a judging team for many years, this was the first year
a concerted effort participate in national competitions and to do well in them.